T-Mobile's New Family Plan Undercuts Verizon, Adds Data

Everybody in the family gets 10GB of data with T-Mobile's new family plan, which costs $30 a line.

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You're getting 10 gigs! And you're getting 10 gigs! T-Mobile is doing with 4G data what Oprah did with cars. The Uncarrier announced today (July 14) that each line on its Simple Choice plans will get 10GB of data. It's not a giveaway, but the $30 for each line adds up to a very reasonable $120 for a family of four.

The new allowance kicks in July 15, and is available on family plans that start at $100 a month for 2 lines ($50 each). Each additional device is $20 per month, but those who sign up before Labor Day will get a fourth line free, making the monthly total $120 for four lines.

Verizon offers a 10GB family plan for $80, but those 10GB are shared among everyone on the plan, in contrast to T-Mobile, where each person gets 10GB all to themselves. What's more, Verizon also charges a $15 access fee for each device on a family plan. That means a family of four would pay an extra $60 each month, bringing the total cost of Verizon's 10GB plan to $140 -- something T-Mobile CEO John Legere was more than happy to point out in a statement announcing his company's new family plan.

"The way the big carriers offer shared data is just a scheme concocted to trick customers into over-paying or to slam them with overage fees," Legere said.

AT&T charges access fees for its family and individual plans as well.

T-Mobile's Simple Choice lines each come with unlimited talk and text, free international data roaming, free music streaming and Data Stash that stores your unused bytes for up to a year.